


Ride to Redhorn

by Sian265



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 18:28:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14959845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sian265/pseuds/Sian265
Summary: Written for Amber for the 2011 My Slashy Valentine ExchangeTitle: Ride to RedhornAuthor: SianBeta: The Much Overworked FimbrethielRating: NC-17Pairing: Elrond/GlorfindelGenre: AUSummary: Elrond must lead his guard to rescue Glorfindel.Written for the 2011 Slashy Valentine ExchangeRequest: rating up to NC-17Requested Pairing = Elrond/GlorfindelStory Elements = Battle Scene





	Ride to Redhorn

Ride To Redhorn  
III 2515

 

“The trade ambassadors will be arriving in a fortnight, so we will need lodging for them, as well.” 

Elrond absently continued his dictation to Erestor, his gaze traveling away from his office and across the room, to the open window and the spring day beyond.

Erestor nodded along with Elrond’s instructions, taking notes in his elegant handwriting. The otherwise normal morning was suddenly disrupted with the thundering sound of hooves drowning out the peaceful chirping of birds. Commotion could be heard as the rider arrived and was met by guards and house staff. Shouting and the sound of running feet soon followed. The door of Elrond’s study burst open and a guard, uniform torn and bloody, face smeared with dirt and sweat, trembled before coming to a stop before his lord.

Elrond and Erestor both shot to their feet in alarm.

“My Lord, we were ambushed!” the guard gasped out before sinking to his knees.

 

Elrond’s face paled, and he grasp Erestor’s arm tightly. “Glorfindel?” he whispered, his voice heavy with dread.

Erestor gently freed his arm from Elrond’s tight grasp and pushed the guard kindly in a chair. Calling for help, he ordered the healers to be fetched and water be brought for the exhausted, injured guard. Elrond stood silent and pale while the healers and Erestor tended to the guard. 

Only seconds passed before Elrond was pushing Erestor and the healers away and kneeling before the guard. “Tell me,” he ordered, his eyes boring into the guard’s very soul.

Elladan and Elrohir burst through the door, alerted by the alarm bell that had begun to toll throughout Imladris. 

“Ada-,” Elladan questioned, but Elrond cut him off with a sharp motion of his hand.

“Now! Tell me!” Elrond ordered again more harshly, his hands gripping the guard’s arms. 

The guard looked fearfully at his lord; he could have sworn Elrond’s eyes glowed. He gulped nervously. “We were coming back through Redhorn Pass.”

Elrohir interrupted with a vile curse. Redhorn Pass was a horrid place and had unbearable memories for Elrond and his family. The beloved lady of Imladris had been attacked and carried off by orcs in the Pass when she was returning from a visit to her parents in Lórien. Her children missed her deeply, and Arwen’s grief was such that she had planned a lengthy stay in the Golden Woods. Glorfindel had escorted Arwen to Lórien and was to have returned in less than a fortnight, taking the road south through the Redhorn Pass and returning by the same route.

The guard blanched at the twins’ reaction, but turned back urgently to Elrond. “My lord, Glorfindel was pinned down, but he and his men were holding their own. The orcs could not make it past our archers, and Glorfindel sent me back for reinforcements.”

Elrond looked up at Erestor, without a word being exchanged, the advisor had the guard off to the Healing Halls and was carrying out Elrond’s other silent order. Horses and equipment were being readied.

The twins ignored Erestor’s departure and started planning how many guards they would take with them and the fastest road to Redhorn. Elrond’s firm voice broke through their planning.

“You will not be going after Glorfindel. I will.”

Elrohir was speechless, his mouth hanging agape in disbelief. It was Elladan who cried, “Ada, no! “Let us ride out. We can reach Glorfindel and send those orcs back to their Master in pieces!”

Finally over his disbelief, Elrohir chimed in. “Ada, this requires stealth and great haste. You have not been upon a battlefield in many an age.” He thought his reasons were sound, until he and his twin watched their normally calm father turn purple in rage.

Elrond seemed to tower over his sons. Although the trio was the same height and build, he seemed, suddenly huge. 

“Mine,” he snarled. “Glorfindel’s soul was re-embodied by Valar for me! Sent back to protect me! I will be riding to his rescue, and neither the orcs nor my own children will stand in my way.” Elrond swept past his astonished sons, fury and deep worry carrying him to his quarters and where Erestor awaited.

Erestor said nothing as he assisted Elrond in stripping his ceremonial robes and attiring his lord in clothes that had not seen daylight in an age. He presented Elrond’s sword with great reverence, for he and Glorfindel alone knew what it had cost Elrond to lay that great weapon aside and make Imladris into the refuge it had become. Elrond was now known as a great healer, a peacemaker, yet many forgot that he had also been the High King’s Herald, second only in battle to Gil-galad himself. 

 

Elrond looked long at his chief advisor before speaking. “All is ready?”

Erestor nodded.

~

The guards that rode behind Elrond were grim-faced, consumed with fear for their captain as the company rode through the arches of Imladris. Once they cleared the steep paths and waterfalls, Elrond raised his hand signaling the group to a stop.

He turned to face those who daily put their lives on the line to protect their valley, their refuge. Elrond was about to do something that went against everything he stood for, something he had promised never to do.

“What I do now, I do for Glorfindel, and if you wish to judge me harshly, so be it.”

Elrond turned forward and raised his right hand, the sunlight catching and setting to fire the brilliant sapphire upon his finger. 

 

SANDS OF TIME SHOW ME THY WAY  
TURN THE NIGHTS INTO DAYS  
VILYA, RING OF AIR, SO LIGHT AND GRACE  
SPEED UP TIME NOW, IN THIS PLACE

 

The very air about them shimmered, and the wind picked up and danced about the elves and horses.

Elrond shouted, “Noro lim, noro lim!” [i]

~

The journey to Redhorn Pass from Imladris on foot was normally sixteen days. Elrond and company made the quest in five, the speed of Elvish horses and the power of Vilya accomplishing this feat. They came to a stop, and the distant sounds of battle could clearly be heard echoing through the caverns and rocks of the mountains. Elrond called forward Hílreth, Glorfindel’s second in command. 

“Send a scout up ahead so that we may know what we are facing,” Elrond ordered.

It took all the patience he had earned in his long years, and every ounce of self control for Elrond to wait, not to ride in and kill every foul creature that yet again wanted to take someone he loved from him. But he knew better, despite his children’s belief that their Ada was a stuffy old bookworm. Elrond had learned under the finest Elven warrior that ever lived, and he was no callow youth in the flush of his first battle. So he waited…

The scout’s report was what he expected. The orcs were not intelligent enough to develop true battle strategy; what they lacked in organization, they made up for in number. While the orcs outnumbered the elves, they had left weaknesses in their planning that Elrond fully intended to exploit. 

Two groups of the enemy had Glorfindel pinned down in the center of the Pass, effectively cutting off his points of escape. Elrond’s plan was to split his archers into two groups, and order one party down the left and the other to the right. The archers were ordered to concentrate their fire on the orcs along the outside masses, creating passages on either side in which to skirt around the enemy engage the body of orcs at the other end of the pass. Elrond hoped that he and the rest of his group could take out the main force of orcs on the west end of the pass. He also ordered the side fighting force to take up to battle lines, effectively cutting the enemy off from Glorfindel’s huddled, injured group and allowing Elrond to get the healers in there and treat the wounded while he and the main body of his forces finished off the orcs for good.

Archers went sent out a few minutes ahead, ordered to climb as swiftly as possible over the top of the orcs and shoot down a rain of arrows when the Imladris force attacked. Elrond called for a silent charge, wanting their enemies to fear that the elves were conjured from the very air. Elvish horses silently charged into battle. The swish of many arrows was the only sound before the air was filled with the high pitch screeching of dying orcs. Elvish steel cut through the blackened abominations quickly, and the side armies were through the line heading for their captain.

Elrond gave nary a thought to the fallen enemy that suffered at the hands of his sword or the black blood that covered him, only that his very blood rejoiced that there were no Elvish voices crying out among the fallen. The enemy forces broke, and Elrond was through!

He heard the cry as he charged into the area where Glorfindel and the Imladris force had been trapped. “TO ELROND!” He knew that voice! Glorfindel was alive!

The rear force of orcs broke as they were slaughtered from above and below. Turning to run, they were cut down before they could kill again. Elrond finally allowed his gaze to fall upon his captain. Pulling his horse to a stop, he dismounted and came to stand before the blond. His eyes searched all over, needing to see for himself that Glorfindel was whole, real. Besides a cut high upon his arm, the Balrog Slayer appeared unharmed, though his usually immaculate braids told the tale of just how rough the fighting had been. 

Glorfindel was grinning at him.

“You are well?” Elrond asked. The next moment found him being crushed against a very broad chest and a warm laugh ghosting across his neck.

“Very well, now,” was Glorfindel’s response.

Elrond reluctantly pulled away all too aware of the eyes that watched him, now that the blood lust had been sated. Briskly clearing his throat, he gave orders for scouts to make sure there were no more orcs roaming about and for the healers to attend the wounded. Elrond needed the distractions desperately. His control was shattered; it was hanging on by a thread. If he contemplated for even a moment just how close he came to losing Glorfindel, he would go mad. He wanted to grab the blond and shake him till his teeth rattled. Demand how Glorfindel dare endanger himself this way. It was irrational, this Elrond knew, but he wanted to order Glorfindel to his side, never to leave it again.

Elrond could feel the blond’s eyes following him about, but perhaps Glorfindel sensed the eruption that would result, so he held his tongue. The area cleared and the wounded treated, Elrond ordered for camp to be set up. He would give the injured a day to rest before beginning the journey home. Catching Glorfindel’s arm, he drew the blond inside his tent, set on treating Glorfindel himself. 

“Sit down,” he ordered, before moving to a table where water and cloth waited. Drawing the herbs and balm he needed, Elrond carried everything back over to the cot Glorfindel was perched upon. Elrond kept his gaze on the items in his hands. “Remove your tunic.”

Glorfindel followed his directions, saying nothing as Elrond treated his arm. The only sound he made was a slight hiss of pain as the wound was cleaned. Finally, after Elrond had laid the bowl of dirty water and the cloth aside, did Glorfindel speak. He reached up and lifted Elrond’s chin so that he could see his lord’s eyes.

“I am well.” Glorfindel spoke softly, gently, almost as if he was treating a skittish steed.

Elrond just stared, gray eyes boring into blue. He said nothing, only closed the distance between them and claimed Glorfindel’s lips in a bruising kiss. Releasing the blond only after he had no more breath, Elrond bore Glorfindel back upon the bedding. “Mine,” he hissed, arousal warring with fear. The fear that he had come so close to losing the very thing he now realized he could not live without. Glorfindel was his, sent back for him!

Glorfindel did the one thing Elrond so desperately needed for him to do. He surrendered to Elrond. And Elrond could not be gentle. Their clothes suffered many a rip and tear, but the feel of flesh to flesh seemed to settle something in Elrond, and his touch gentled. He could not afford the time for much foreplay, but he was careful in preparing Glorfindel’s body to receive his; when he slid inside, Elrond’s heart calmed and finally believed what his body was telling him. Glorfindel was alive and with him. 

Now came the soft, slow touch that Elrond’s heart had ached to give. The demands of his body he had always mastered, but it was the dreams of the heart that had long been his vulnerability. In Glorfindel he could trust all, of this Elrond was certain, and as Glorfindel embraced him, calling his name breathlessly upon completion, Elrond was at peace. 

~  
The journey home was much lengthier than the trip to the Pass. Extra care was taken with the wounded. Finally, the cliffs of Imladris came into view and the square filled with its inhabitants, gladly welcoming home their warriors. Elladan and Elrohir were the first to reach their father and Glorfindel. Both received rib-crushing hugs and each subjected to a detailed once-over to satisfy the twins that all was indeed well. With a meaningful look at Elrond, Glorfindel headed off to his quarters to bathe and refresh himself, and Elrond followed that example. Briefly meeting his councilor’s knowing gaze, Elrond felt himself flush, just a little.

Elrond’s warriors kept their lord’s counsel; no word of his use of Vilya ever reached the ears of any who had not been on that journey. However, their lord’s skill on the battlefield seemed fuel for the gossip mills for weeks following their return. None remarked of the closeness of their captain and lord, even when the pair were seen heading to Elrond’s chambers every night. 

The only Imladris inhabitants that seemed affected by the recent events were the twins. Their almost skittish behavior towards their father had Glorfindel laughing and asking Elrond if he had finally, after all these ages, spanked the twins! Elrond responded by putting the blond’s mouth to much better uses.

The End…


End file.
